


Loyalty in adversity

by Ryuosen



Series: ME gift exchange [2]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-03-04 04:29:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2937650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ryuosen/pseuds/Ryuosen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Had James known what lay in his future after his assignment to Shepard's crew, he might rather have faced the Reapers on earth. As it was, he had no choice but to keep moving and hope fore the best. Little did he know that the best had already been close by.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Loyalty in adversity

**Author's Note:**

> My giftee wished something with Vega/femShep. Since I usually struggle with other people's Sheps I wrote this from James' perspective. Hopefully it's still to your liking, Merry Christmas!

 

  
**written** by [](http://ryuosen.livejournal.com/profile)[**ryuosen**](http://ryuosen.livejournal.com/) for [](http://downy-fae.livejournal.com/profile)[**downy_fae**](http://downy-fae.livejournal.com/)  
 **written** for the gift exchange at [](http://masseffect.livejournal.com/profile)**masseffect**  
 **genre:** sci-fi, angst, action, romance  
 **warnings:** character death, violence, language  
 **Summary:**  
Had James known what lay in his future after his assignment to Shepard's crew, he might rather have faced the Reapers on earth. As it was, he had no choice but to keep moving and hope fore the best. Little did he know that the best had already been close by.  
  
 **Author's note:** My giftee wished something with Vega/femShep. Since I usually struggle with other people's Sheps I wrote this from James' perspective. Hopefully it's still to your liking, Merry Christmas!

Wish:  
2) Vega/[FemShep](http://i656.photobucket.com/albums/uu287/_twilight_star_/cleoaf.png). Still disappointed that this wasn't a pairing in the game, Anyway, this is my Cleo Shep, who is fiercely renegade and just wants to make it out of the Reaper War alive. Throughout the last game she continues the genophage and sides with the geth. She chooses Control, since she believes that her idea of the world is right. Anyway, this one can be tragic, violent, whatever. Fluff is also good, but I like the undertones that Cleo is starting to realize that she's not going to survive. Maybe that she starts to love Vega. Whatever suits your taste, I just like this pairing!

* * *

_Loyalty in adversity_

The destruction reached farther than his eyes could see. Corpses and body parts littered the once paved streets, the stench of death permeating everything. Breathing through the mouth James suppressed the urge to gag.

Closing the eyes of a young woman before taking the thin chain from her neck, he cursed quietly. Then he looped the chain around his own neck, having the tags rest next to his own and those of the others he'd already found. If someone had told him days ago that Cleo Shepard would have him pulled from a battle field, he would have had the person committed.

Yet here he was, alive and well, or as well as he could be considering what had happened. Not even two days ago that ridiculous notion had become reality. Now nothing was like before the Reaper invasion and he wasn't speaking of the damage and the lost lives. He didn't know whether or not he should be thankful that Cleo had evacuated him or hate her for the decision. James had never considered himself a deep thinker, rather he acted on instinct and so far his M.O had served him well.

But now he was thinking.

_About Cleo, about himself and what they were and what they could have been._

Foolish he knew, she was gone after all. Gone after she had mostly succeeded in what she had set out to do. The Reaper threat wasn't destroyed, but gone and James knew she was responsible for it.

EDI had analyzed the data stream which had been sent by the crucible, she hadn't managed to decipher the message completely but enough to understand that it had been orders of some kind.

Typical Cleo, to impose her will on the Reapers.

But what of the cost? Here they were days later, the Normandy and Cleo missing. Anderson they had found, dead, inside the badly damaged Citadell as well as the illusive man.

But _Cleo_...

The pistol on his hip weighed heavily on his mind, it was all they had found few feet from Anderson's body. He remembered the pained look on Alenko's face when he had lifted the weapon from the ground, a bitter smile on his face.

She hadn't received a funeral so far, most hoping to find at least her tags somewhere.

He and Alenko had never been friends, merely comrades in arms. He'd trusted the other spectre to watch his back and play a mean game of poker with him but beyond that... It made it all the more surprising when Alenko offered him the pistol with few words, _"You deserve it more than anyone else."_

James hadn't seen Alenko since then.

He missed the Normandy. She had become home since they left earth. In moments like this he wished for her comfort, for his hangar, for his banter with Steve and most of all he missed Cleo. They hadn't gotten along at first, her arrogant manner putting him off. But she was a soldier through and through and despite her arrogance and her brash manner, she always got the job done.

Still when she had proposed they had a little tumble in the hangar he hadn't been adverse to it.

Cleo wasn't as beautiful as some of the women he'd been with before but she exuded presence and power. Her very being was a multitude of facets, James found hopelessly attractive. Like he said, she always got the job done, even if it cost them.

Now she had gotten the job done too and it cost them her.

It made him wonder whether she had known she wouldn't come out of the whole mess alive. The always present danger had become something you either got used to or not. With time and after more and more death defying maneuvers James could almost believe they would have made it.

In the nights when Cleo had stayed rather than leaving at the first sign of their breathing evening out. Her presence against his chest a comforting warmth. When she'd be too tired to move after their dance, when she didn't object to being called Loco. Those moments had become a treasure and source of comfort for him.

Objectively speaking he knew that he wasn't the only one who loved her. He would have to be blind not to notice the sad glances Alenko offered her, the way they moved together, intimate yet restrained, professional. There was history and it was more than just Cerberus. Because despite what some might think, James wasn't a stupid idiot, he wasn't just muscle. Hell, N7 wanted him, shouldn't that say something.  
  
Still he noticed how some people immediately upon meeting him throughout their journey thought him stupid.

Well their mistake and his advantage.  
  
Garrus was the same, yet unlike Alenko. He too had a different kind of history with Cleo. But obviously they had managed to move beyond whatever it was. A friendship still going strong. It would be odd to think of Cleo fighting without being certain that Garrus wasn't lurking behind some cover to make sure no one would ever surprise her from behind.  
  
However both apparently couldn't offer Loco what she needed or else she wouldn't have come to him, James figured. She wouldn't use anyone, it wasn't her style. At least not when it concerned a friend. Bluntly she asked him for sex, not love or anything else, not even the comfort they all knew she needed.

And he'd given her sex, good sex if he might say so himself. And besides that he'd been a friend different from Garrus because you just didn't talk about some things with an ex-lover, best friend or not.

He'd loved her a month into their affair. Of course, he kept that little realization to himself. Loco didn't believe in love or so she said.

James doubted the notion, his fingers caressing the tag around his neck, because why else would Loco have swapped one of their tags without his knowledge. He'd only noticed when he'd awoken on another Alliance fleet in the medical bay with Dr. Chakwas watching over him.

They'd been victorious then and Loco was gone.

Now he would have to go one without her and he didn't even know if he could manage. He already knew he didn't want to end up like Alenko who been recalled to his duties as spectre as soon as victory had been confirmed. Hell he wouldn't be there for Loco's funeral when she received one.

N7 still wanted him and as soon as his duty here was over he could begin training. But did he want that?

He wasn't certain. So for now he would comfort himself by paving the way Loco had made possible for them. He was certain she wouldn't have it any other way.

_fin_


End file.
